Cat
by Freeheart
Summary: Just a simple story about an assassin finding a cat.  Nothing much to it.


Long ago, it was decided that I'd be the first one to use the lovely little Tesseract character option FFN added. I procrastinated so much that I thought it wouldn't happen... and here it is anyway. Strange how things happen like that. I don't think I really lived up to the idea's potential, but since no-one else was bothering, I did it anyway.

Skulduggery Please and characters are owned by Derek Landy, the golden god.

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><p>Tesseract stood in the shadows of the alleyway waiting for Neuzkrāt Vinakmens, a high-ranking Adept in the Riga Sanctuary. He usually liked to wait in his victims' homes, but seeing as Neuzkrāt was as penniless as he was eccentric, he lived in a literal cardboard box at the end of an alleyway. Which was why Tesseract was standing there and getting rained on instead of in a broom closet and being dry.<p>

Water was beginning to collect inside the eye sockets of his mask. He shook it out and wished that he had worn a better mask that morning; the ruts on this one practically guided the water into his eyes.

Neuzkrāt had yet to appear. That was okay; Tesseract was a patient and he was used to standing in one place for long periods of time. Even the stench of the alleyway was beginning to fade. The assassin relaxed momentarily.

And then he heard a mewling sound at his feet. He glanced down, stiffening and prepared to attack.

The mewling came from a small ball of dark fur that he identified as a kitten. The kitten was currently very interested in his shoelaces, and was batting at them with tiny paws.

Tesseract lifted his foot and shook it, meaning to dislodge the kitten and send it scurrying. If it stayed, there was a chance it would alert Neuzkrāt to his presence and that would not do. He didn't particularly want to kill it, but he would if it came to that.

The kitten remained and brazenly climbed up onto the top of his boot with its claws outstreched still intent on attacking the lacings.

Annoyed, he reached down and plucked it up by the scruff of the neck. He gave the kitten a red-eyed glare.

"_No,"_ he told it softly before dropping it a foot off the ground. It being a cat, it landed on it paws and went straight back to showing it interest in his boots.

Tesseract sighed and decided that it was just a kitten – it could do no harm, especially when confronted with the tight lacing of the assassin's boot.

A distant sound caught his attention and he looked away. It sounded as though Neuzkrāt had finally appeared. Tesseract stepped back into the shadows, prepared to leap out at any moment. The cat gave a short, high cry as he did so.

He glanced down again and saw the kitten – which was, he decided, either very brave or very stupid – batting at his now loose shoelace. Tesseract frowned beneath his mask and knelt to fix it. It might not have been the smartest move, what with Neuzkrāt approaching, but it was fix it now or risk doing something incredibly stupid and potentially life threaning later. Like tripping.

He tied the rogue lace as the kitten watched him with wide amber eyes and the sound of Neuzkrāt's approach drew nearer. The Latvian mage was doing little to hide his presence – it even sounded as though he were quite drunk. And was almost upon him.

Tesseract straightened and, without thinking, put the kitten in his pocket.

Neuzkrāt turned the corner, taking long, leisurely strides and wavering slightly. There was a brown paper bag containing a wine bottle in his right hand. This, Tesseract assumed, would be easy, with no complications.

Neuzkrāt walked over to his cardboard box, humming to himself and not noticing the large Russian man in the mental mask standing in the shadow. Tesseract took the opportunity to walk silently up to his back, preparing to reach over and snap his neck.

Then he jostled his pocket and the kitten let out a sharp mew. Neuzkrāt spun around, shouted a spell and vanished in a blast of dark, red-violet smoke. Tesseract blinked the smoke out of his eyes, knowing that Neuzkrāt couldn't have moved more than a couple of feet.

He listened and heard the sound of drunken feet attempting to move about quietly. He reached in the direction the sound was coming from. He hadn't wanted to use his magic – because there were so many other less messy ways to get rid of someone of his caliber – but he did so anyway. Neuzkrāt's body fell to the ground, his ribcage having exploded and destroyed his internal organs.

Tesseract side-stepped the body, deciding that a dead homless man with violet hair and dressed in a velvet coat left for the normal authorities to be confounded by would be enough of as proof of death. The kitten in his pocket started squirming again. He reached in and pulled it out, dropping it onto the ground. It landed with a squeak.

Tesseract, his job now done, decided to leave and did so. He heard the kitten mewing after him, but didn't glance back, even when the sounds became more urgent. Maybe he had just killed its owner – he didn't really care. Besides, it was just a cat, what could it know?

The kitten ran out after him and leapt at the back of his legs, sinking its claws into his pants and slipping, because Tesseract's pants were not the sort that a creature could claw at easily. The assassin glanced down and then heard what the kitten seemed to be warning him about.

He scooped up the kitten, put it in his pocket once again and ran out of the alleyway just before the security measures Neuzkrāt had put on his cardboard dwelling caused that end of the alley to blow up.

Three blocks away, he stopped running. The kitten, who'd been clinging for dear life to the lining of his pocket, looked up at him with wide amber eyes.

"What?" he said. "I'm not taking you with me." He put the cat back down; gentle, this time, because it _had _more or less saved his life. He continued on, as he could hear sirens and he didn't want to get stopped by police or crowds.

The cat followed after him.

He turned back, giving the cat a piercing stare. It looked at him.

He shrugged and let it follow him. It did so gladly.

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><p>Notes:<p>

Neuzkrāt Vinakmens's name was chosen based on the idea that sorcerors in other languages would be just as silly as they are in English. Bonus points to anyone who knows what it means without looking at a translator.

Cat is refered to as 'it' because I don't think Tesseract, despite his age, awesomness and the sheer amount of random things he'd have to know, would know how to tell a kitten's gender right off.

I don't care what anyone says, in my mind Cat is an adorable little tortoishell and I am not a Tesseract fangirl in any way, shape or form. :I

Reviews are loved.


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